The field of the present invention relates to targeted delivery or presentation of advertisements within television content displayed on a viewing device such as a television (“TV”) using a set-top box (“STB”).
To satisfy various laws, regulations, or policies pertaining to user privacy in an online environment, a primary goal is to maintain segregation of a user's personally identifiable information (“PII”) from that user's online behavioral profile information (e.g., sites visited, content viewed, searches requested, or products purchased). It has also been deemed desirable, from a privacy perspective, to maintain similar segregation between (i) a user's online profile information and (ii) information or data on specific television viewing habits or profiles linked to a specific STB, even though that viewing data may not constitute PII.
Due to privacy reasons, it is desired to avoid reporting which TV programs or channels have been viewed using a specific STB.
Recording or tracking user behavior in one medium in response to presumed behavior in another, and correlating those behaviors, are also desirable goals. Such capability can enable an advertiser to target future ads more accurately, to evaluate the effectiveness of particular ads or ad campaigns, or for other purposes. PII may (or may not) be used to establish an association between devices of differing media.
It is therefore desirable to solve the technical problem of providing systems and methods for selecting and delivering television advertisements (“TV ads”), in some cases including targeted television advertisements, in response to an indication that a set-top box requires advertisements, without knowledge of which television program or television channel is being presented via that set-top box.
It is also desired to generate (or store) STB-originated reports of which selected or default TV ads were delivered within which TV programs or on which TV channels, so as to report to the advertiser the exact number of ads delivered to the target audience through STBs and the amount owed by the advertiser as a consequence, and to report to TV ad space sellers the amount of inventory used in delivering ads and the amount they are owed as a consequence.
In instances when an advertisement is selected without knowledge of which TV program or channel is being presented via the STB, it also may be desirable to provide reporting in the form of aggregate data for multiple set-top boxes indicating how many times a given television advertisement was presented.
It also may be desirable to track and correlate online behavior of, or target online advertisements (i.e., any advertisement transmitted to an online user interface device via the Internet, its successor, or another remotely accessible network) to, a user based on previous presumed delivery of television advertisements to that user's set-top box. It further may be desirable to do so despite the use of dynamic device addresses for the user's online access or television service, or while maintaining segregation of the user's PII, television viewing habits, and online behavioral profile information.